LBAN is pleased to welcome board of 2022.
Four new members joined the board to reinforce the efforts taken towards strengthening the network. Read their short bio below.
Christophe Bianco
Christophe is the co-founder and Managing Director of Excellium Services, cyber-security service provider in the Belux and African region.
He is an Associate Professor at Telecom Nancy, regularly speaks at conferences about Information Security issues, analysis of the economics of cyber-crime or evolving threats. Since 2020 he is an active Angel Investor through LBAN and Angelsquare with a current portfolio of more than 10 investments to date. Christophe has an engineering degree and an Executive MBA from HEC Paris.
Ning Kong
Ning is an Senior Officer at the European Investment Fund with over 15 years’ experience in Financial Services. She is a specialists in risk management and has worked in London and in Luxembourg.
Ning is an energetic and culturally aware leader, and a firm believer of ‘role model’. With a strong entrepreneurial mindset, she is also a mentor to start-ups and non-profits. Ning earned an EMBA from both INSEAD and Tsinghua University.
Olivier Keiser
Olivier is a senior executive with multinational experience in propelling revenue and profit growth through business leadership,
product development, sales planning, account management, and commercial & operational excellence. He is a resourceful entrepreneur with skills in shaping long-range vision/strategy and leading cross-functional teams on multi million-dollar business initiatives. Olivier has a track record of innovation and success in growing companies from regional to global player through organic growth, restructuring, repositioning, turnarounds, M&A, and business integration in changing markets/economic cycle.
Thierry De Poerck
Thierry holds senior and executive management positions in international banking and financial institutions. With over 17 years of experience, Thierry is a seasoned professional specializing in cross-border Mergers & Acquisition and strategy consulting. To date, Thierry has also achieved successful business transformation, acceleration, and optimization in the fashion industry.
Thierry is an active angel investor and has made more than 15 investments in start-ups.
We are pleased to continue working with the rest of the Board members who retained their board membership for the 2022.
Stephan Peters Stephan is an experienced executive and advisor with a long track record of resolving strategic dilemmas and providing guidance through
transformational change in the Financial Services, Technology, and Communication sectors. Utilizing his background in investment banking and private equity investing, Stephan has invested in 18 innovative startups over the past decade (1 exit, 4 liquidations, 13 still alive with average vintage of 4.5 years).
Stephan earned an MBA at INSEAD, earned MSc in Aerospace Engineering (cum laude) from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and is also a CFA Charterholder from the CFA Institute. Romain Hoffmann
In 2017 Romain rediscovered his passion for start-ups and since, he is actively investing as a Business Angel with preference for SAAS B2B business models. He was a founder of a successful IT company in software development at age of 17.
In 2020 he was elected to the LBAN Board and was nominated as Head of Investment Committee. Over more than 25 years in the banking business, Romain acquired industry expertise in corporate analysis & finance for companies of any size and any commercial activity.
Romain is known for his perseverance, his positive mind, his problem solving and analytical capabilities. Strong focus is lying on collaboration with founder teams, financials, product development, UX/UI, go-to-market strategy, scalability, operations and automation processes.
Philippe Linster
In 2020, Philippe joined the House of Startups (HoST) as a CEO and he also represents the institution on various boards (Luxembourg Business Angels Network, Luxinnovation, etc.).
Philippe joined the Chamber of Commerce in 2017 as an advisor at the House of Entrepreneurship and was in charge of the ‘Investor care’ platform dedicated to advising foreign investors interested in Luxembourg.
In his spare time, Philippe is a member of the national chess team and represented Luxembourg during various Chess Olympiads. He’s also an international handball referee active at all competition levels.
Michel Rzonzef
Michel has over 15 years experience in international board governance and is a C-suite executive and officer at a Fortune 500 Company.
Michel has proven track record in driving sustained growth in Emerging Markets as well as in rejuvenating mature business models across economic cycles.
Highly adaptive, visionary leader, designing and implementing disruptive strategies through customer-centric transformation. Michel has a strong interpersonal and cross-cultural skills, with particular empathy for people development.
Arnold Spruits
Arnold is an active angel investor and has been a member of LBAN for a number of years.
Arnold has a portfolio in Tech and digitization firms across Europe. He is keen and often provides network, experience, and advice to start-ups.
Arnold is also a Business Advisor, and a Certified Director from INSEAD.
LBAN new board also put in place a refined strategy to be executed on for the coming years.